Thoughts on the fiscal challenges, from the Director of the GAO.
If you plan a planetary science mission on assumption that you'll use SLS, you're making a very risky bet.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) December 22, 2014
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Virgin Galactic’s New Web Site
A lot of the previous hype seems to have gone down the memory hole. As Doug writes, it’s a shame that it took the destruction of a vehicle and death of a pilot to finally get them to tone it down.
Writing Versus Typing
Is it cognitively different?
I don’t care. They’ll take away my keyboard from my cold, dead hands.
The Wright Anniversary
It’s been 111 years. On the centennial, eleven years ago, I wrote three pieces. One at Fox News, one at TechCentralStation (which later became TCSDaily), and one at National Review on line. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have suffered from link rot. I’m trying to find out if it still exists on their server.
[Evening update]
National Review has resurrected my other piece.
Jerry Pournelle
He apparently suffered a minor stroke. From his son, Alex:
Jerry had a small stroke. He is recovering well at a local hospital. Prognosis is good, though they’re running more tests and he’s expected to stay at least another day or two.
“He felt well enough to call Mom [Mrs. Pournelle] from the hospital.
“Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. More updates when we have them.
I saw him a few weeks ago, and he seemed to be doing as well as a man his age who has recovered from a brain tumor could be expected to. Best wishes for a rapid recovery.
Friday’s Barge Landing
Here‘s the SpaceX press release. Note that no government agency is funding them to do this. It’s actual internal R&D, a rarity in this industry, at least up until now. Also, if NASA was doing this, they’d spend billions up front on analysis. In contrast, SpaceX is flying, and failing, and improving, and flying again, and failing and improving. They may not land on Friday, but they’ll be a lot closer to being able to do it.
[Update a while later]
Why the CRS-5 mission could change everything.
Making Stem Cells Pluripotent
They’ve found the on/off switch for it in mice. Hopefully humans won’t be far behind.
Our Dependence On Russian Engines
“Certainly the NDAA places future restrictions on the use of the Russian engines for national security space applications. Our application is in civil space. There’s a long history of U.S.-Russian cooperation in civil space, dating back to Apollo-Soyuz in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War. Since our immediate objective is in civil space supporting the International Space Station, it’s got a slightly different twist or perspective than supporting national security space. NASA already relies on cooperation with its Russian partner in other ways to execute the ISS program [including] crew transport. Certainly it would not make sense to restrict the use of engines manufactured in Russia on a program that’s already inherently dependent on cooperation between the United States and Russia.”
In other words, civil space isn’t important. We cooperated with the Soviets during the Cold War, but we were never dependent on them. I assume this means more INKSNA waivers.
PC Question
No, not political correctness — personal computer. I’m doing a mobo/processor upgrade. I notice that almost all the AMD processors have Radeon graphics built in. I assume that in order to take advantage of this, I have to have a mobo with video support? I’ve been operating off an old PCI express card for years, and have no problems with it, but if I can get significant performance improvement from the new built-in GPU, it might be worth spending a little more for a video mobo. I don’t do any heavy graphics, but maybe it would be nice to go to full HD and fast processing.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, all the boards have video outputs, so when it says it has no on-board video support, that just means that it has no dedicated graphics chips, and relies on the processor, right? So the GPU built in to the CPU would work, and be better than my old PCI express? Or is the separate card better because it has its own memory?
NASA’s Drift
I talked to Farenthold about this a few months ago, but I actually see SLS/Orion as a bigger and more dangerous waste of funds, because unlike a test stand that will almost certainly never be used, they have the vague appearance of utility to those who don’t understand the program, and will be harder to kill.